So what is coming up on the Digital Arcana radar? I have a post about mobile phone utility and why I love my terminally “uncool” Blackberry as well as a review of the new Verizon/Samsung 4G LTE hotspot. I also plan to start posting periodic mini-reviews of iPad apps I find especially useful as well as a regular post regarding baby/kid gadgets I want (my kid to have).

So this is a placeholder post to get myself back on track with the posting, but I am not giving up on this blog. It takes about a month for something to become a habit and this blog is something I feel very strongly about. I will make it a habit if it kills me, which I hope it doesn’t.

Now, it’s time to get back to the day job. Happy gadgeteering!

However, when you enjoy a fine piece of community theatre such Greenbelt Arts Centre’s production of Reefer Madness, you don’t regret leaving the iPad at home and turning the phone off for a couple hours. Seriously, if you’re in the area, go see this show tomorrow night. If you’re not living near Greenbelt, Maryland… well… you’re not living near Greenbelt, Maryland. (Sorry, Apple, but it’s a really stupid ad campaign.)

And now… off to bed. My personal batteries are low.

Digital picture frames are a good example of extreme gadget shininess and very low utility. They fall into the category best described by Alton Brown as a unitasker and their task is primarily cosmetic. In fact, there is a kind of negative utility involved in having a digital picture frame, since its only job is to sit around looking pretty and you have to spend at least some of your precious time loading pictures onto the thing and a little of your hard-earned money keeping it fed with electricity.

So what, then, saves a shiny gadget from irrelevancy? The very thing a diamond ring and a digital picture frame lack: utility. If I give you a diamond ring for a week and take it away, have you lost anything other than the resale value of the ring? Do you miss it because you can no longer do something you could do with the ring on your finger? (Ignore this point if you own The One Ring. Invisibility and the ability to bend the will of men and elves is utility!)

This brings us to the iPad and the gadget niche it created for the invading hordes of tablets we can expect to see flood the market now and in the years to come. These devices have a kind of easily portable utility that is, while shiny, also useful in the extreme. Regardless of the manufacturer, each tablet brings a specific kind of utility that is the sum of the applications available for the device. Apple has the current edge here, of course, but other companies are working very hard to close the gap. In my experience, my iPad can and does act as an organizer, a notepad, a communications device (emergency backup telephone capability included, thanks to Skype), a research tool, an entertainment device and a financial tracker. If this is starting to sound familiar, that is because the only other machine that can boast this kind of versatility is a personal computer. Here’s where things get interesting!

What is the deep-down difference between a personal computer and a netbook or a tablet? Absolutely nothing! A tablet is a computer that may (or may not, in the case of Windows-based tablets) run a different operating system and sport a different input method, but it is still just a personal computer. In the case of a tablet, the primary trade-off is extreme portability for extra processing horsepower. So why would anybody trade the power of a personal computer for a tablet? The sad truth is that most people with modern personal computers use a tiny fraction of the power they purchased. Computers have been getting steadily more powerful (Moore’s Law: look it up if you don’t know what it is) to the point that your average web-surfing, email-writing and light-game-playing user sits on several orders of magnitude more unused computing horsepower than it took to send a man to the moon. Apple realized (fuelled, no doubt, by the brief popularity of the “netbook”) that the average user would be more than happy with less power for less money and more portability. If they got excellent battery life and a truly powerful and intuitive control scheme along with it, so much the better. A cheaper application infrastructure focused on what most people do with their computing time drives the trend even further. (I bought the iPad’s word processor, Pages, for $10. Suck on that, Microsoft Office!) The best part is that all the end user really has to give up is the “bloat”. The bloat is the glut of features the average user almost never uses, but buys on the off chance that they might need them. This perception of utility is somewhat along the same lines as putting a blender in your car. Sure, once in awhile, it’s nice to have a road-smoothie, but how much real utility have you gained? Psychology being what it is, though, you start to look a new cars without blenders as kind of a let-down.

This brings us full-circle to the “shiny”. Apple, in their marketing genius, figured out how to give our hungering psyches a pacifier to make up for our lost bloat and it is the one thing that only Apple does extremely well in today’s tech market: they gave us the shiny! At least this is one time that a little bit of technological vanity fuelled a change in the tech market that’s actually good for the consumer.

As I’ve already said, I want to set a few standards for myself. The first is objectivity. I write exactly what I think. I don’t sell any ads, nobody sponsors my website and I don’t get any free gadgets to review. For now, this isn’t much of a choice on my part. Nobody beyond my family and friends knows I’m here and I haven’t yet got a massive readership waiting impatiently to hear my opinion of the iPad 2. I plan to write honest reviews of the gadgets I can get (or already have) in my hands. I promise here and now that, even if I do find myself with any kind of sizable readership, I will not accept advertising of any kind nor will I trade positive reviews for demo units or any other form of compensation. My opinion is not for sale, and it wouldn’t be even if it were worth selling.

I am also striving to be a practical person in the face of gadget lust. For one thing, I’ve just found out that I’m going to be a father. This news vastly changes my gadget buying landscape. Aside from expecting a change in disposable income, I am also feeling that it’s time to do a little growing up. This involves understanding the difference between “Ooh… shiny!” and “Oh! I could really use something like that…” If I can train myself to know the difference, I can try to pass the skill on to others.

Even though my writing skills could stand some improvement, I think I can hold my own. Besides, part of the point of this exercise is to improve. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to trying.

Right now, I’m planning to post something each and every day. I’m not sure if I can keep up the pace, but it’s a good place to start until I can settle into a routine. So this post is the end of my self indulgence. Tomorrow, I will get to the reason I started this blog. Bring on the gadgets!

My first pet peeve is unvarnished fanboyism. (I’m looking at you again, Gawker.) Do I like some Apple products? Yes. Am I writing this post on an iPad? Yes. Do I think The Great Jobs walks on water? No. There isn’t a single tech product on the market today that’s without flaws. Tech blogs need to stop pretending that their favorite gadget is the second coming and report on the good and the bad in balanced fashion. Flaws are a way of life and talking about them helps the industry improve its products. More importantly, the consumer needs to know about these issues in order to make informed decisions.

My other big problem is the assumption that each and every technological advancement or new gadget is a good thing simply because it’s new. There is a difference between wanting something because it’s new and shiny and seeking out something to improve your life, health or workflow in some measurable way. (*cough* 3D televisions *cough*) Have I bought gadgets because they are new and shiny? Oh yeah! Do I eventually regret many of these decisions and wish I had spent my paycheck on other frivolities like food, shelter and clothing? Often, the answer is yes. Shiny is fleeting and expensive. Useful lasts… well… the reality is that, in the tech world, it should last at least a year or so.

Finally, my biggest pet peeve is slogging through an article riddled with poor grammar and spelling. I don’t want to read a post over and over, trying to translate it from some thoroughly mangled attempt at English. I’m reading the post because I want to understand something. I will make mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation. Please call me on my mistakes in the comments. I want to be a better writer. This will involve screwing up and being mocked. I can take it.

So, after all that, why am I writing this blog? What is it all about? I’m writing it because I love gadgets and technology. I love to see how our clever machines can make our lives better and I hate to watch as they make our lives worse. I also want to set a standard for objectivity, practicality and readability and learn a few new things in the process. Eventually, I would like my voice to be heard above the noise. I want to help as many people as possible identify the things they can actually use and distinguish them from the pile of shiny gadgets that rabid fanboys want everyone to buy so that they can validate their own investment.